After suffering their first loss of the season, the Winnipeg Jets were looking to bounce back for the first time in 2024-25. They did just that, going on the road and defeating the Red Wings 6-2 in Detroit on Wednesday evening. Here are a few things to take away from this contest.
Kyle Connor hits 500 career points
Gabriel Vilardi scored his third of the year on an early feed from Kyle Connor, and then Vilardi returned the favour, as Connor slid the puck past Alex Lyon to score his 9th goal of the season. In the opening ten games of the year, Connor has at least one point in every game.
That opening assist was Kyle Connor’s 500th career point, achieved in just 541 career games.
Coming into this game, the Connor-Scheifele-Vilardi trio had been outscored 9-2 at five-on-five. While they dominated the power play and in overtime situations, they’ve lost their even-strength minutes to this point.
Photo Credit: Colby Spence (Illegal Curve)
That quickly changed on Wednesday, as that trio opened up the game with three five-on-five goals in the first period to give the Jets a 3-0 lead.
Their centre, Mark Scheifele, spoke about his line’s play to begin the season: “We’re a good line. There’s games that go our way and that don’t go our way, but we were 8-0 before last game. So that’s something. Obviously we all played a great game. KC and Gabe were absolutely fantastic, it was fun to play with those guys tonight.”
With 17 points in the first ten games, while adding consistent flashes of impressive defensive play into his game, there’s no doubt that Connor is playing the best hockey of his career right now.
Neal Pionk adds to his impressive start
Neal Pionk scored two goals in tonight’s game, which adds to his incredibly impressive start to the 2024-25 season.
Pionk is now tied for second place in scoring for NHL defencemen (12) with Alex Pietrangelo from the Vegas Golden Knights, with Cale Makar sitting comfortably in first place with 19 points.
Photo Credit: Colby Spence (Illegal Curve)
The pairing of Dylan Samberg and Pionk had a rough night on Monday against the Toronto Maple Leafs, as both players were on the ice for all five even-strength goals against. Pionk was asked about his bounce-back performance tonight and what went wrong on Monday.
“It was a combination of them playing really well and us playing very poorly,” Pionk said after Wednesday’s game. “Over the course of 82 games, that’s going to happen. You’ve got to respond. I think that’s the biggest thing.”
That pairing bounced back in a big way, adding the two goals and allowing zero at even strength. They managed the puck extremely well in this game, as according to Money Puck, they controlled 80.17% of the expected goals at five-on-five.
Not only has Pionk been a part of a successful even-strength pairing, but he’s been a massive contributor to the second power-play unit, which has enjoyed success so far this season.
What’s ahead for the Winnipeg Jets
The Jets now hold a 9-1-0 record as they gear up to head into Columbus on Friday evening and take on the Blue Jackets, who currently hold a record of 5-3-1.
If you fall in the camp of caution regarding the Jets and their early-season strength of schedule, November is where we will learn plenty about this team once the Jets return home on Sunday, November 3, to take on the Tampa Bay Lightning. That begins a stretch of 10 out of their next 11 games against either playoff teams from a season ago or a central division opponent.
A 9-1-0 record is no joke, but going forward, the Jets and their league-best record will be put to the test amongst some of the NHL’s elite teams from a season ago.
Despite the tough schedule ahead, the Jets have banked a ton of points early in the season thanks to elite special teams and goaltending. While the power play and penalty kill units are likely to regress from the incredibly high rates they are clicking at, we saw the Jets flex their five-on-five dominance that we saw often in 2023-24 in Wednesday’s convincing 6-2 win over the Red Wings.
